Games We Play
by gwennie3579
Summary: Ted/Patrick SLASH. Cousincest. Don't like, don't read. Ted has a whole new world of responsiblities heaped on him after the King's death. Can Patrick help him carry the load?


**Disclaimer:** I do not own anything.

**A/N:** I wrote this years ago, after reading the books, for no discernible reason. I have no idea why I even considered this pairing, but it popped into my head, and had to be written. It is what it is. Slash, of the kissing-cousin variety.

Ted climbed the cold stairs to his room with a weary air. Patrick was sound asleep and, not wanting to disturb him, Ted crept silently beneath the linen covers. He felt physically burdened by the happenings of the day before, and his neck and shoulders ached with the tension. Ted sighed, trying to shrug it all off, and burrowed deeper into his pillow. It wasn't until he felt a hot dampness trickling down his neck he even realized he was crying.

In his defense, Ted tried everything in his power to stop his tears. He wasn't even entirely sure why he was crying - though he felt, after nine years of their game, that he knew King William as a son would his father, there had been no love lost between them. William had been a decent king, a good-hearted man, and an adequate father. He had not, however, been someone Ted would think to grieve over.

And yet grieving he certainly was. With sudden clarity, Ted realized why he felt such a deep sense of loss. He was mourning the loss of their childhood, all five of them. They had grown, not just taller and fuller during their time in the Secret Country, but more mature and less inclined to their childish ways. Laura hadn't tripped over anything in days, Ellen hadn't said anything on impulse, Ruth walked and acted with a grace far beyond her years, and Patrick had developed a fierce but quiet intensity. Ted himself acted with a certain degree of thoughtfulness he had not displayed during their summers playing together.

This realization, unfortunately, did nothing to soothe Ted's battered emotions. He continued to sob quietly, clutching at the coverlet as violent shivers wracked his body. Sniffling, he opened his eyes a crack and looked at his cousin sleeping peacefully beside him. Narrow shafts of moonlight pushed their way through cracks between the stone wall and fell like tiny drops of silver over Patrick's face. He looked terribly young and terribly innocent in the faint light, and Ted hated himself for dragging him along on this "adventure."

Ted sighed, shutting his eyes to this painful thought, and concentrated on sleep. After a mere moment he gave it up as a lost cause and opened his eyes again.

An unflinching blue gaze met his own, and Ted's heart jumped into his throat. "Patrick," he whispered, swiping an angry hand over his cheeks, attempting to wipe away the traces of his breakdown. But of course, Patrick could not be fooled.

"Are you alright?" he said quietly, looking, for the first time in Ted's memory, concerned about his elder cousin.

"Yeah," Ted said huskily, but he was still sniffling. He hoped desperately his tears were done, but he could feel another round welling up deep in his stomach. He ground his teeth together and clamped his eyes shut, trying to quell them. He couldn't remember actually crying in years - not since that time when Laura had been in first grade and had fallen through a sliding glass door and had been in the hospital for days, all stitched and bandaged up. Though Ted had never admitted it, he had been terrified for his baby sister, and had cried every night she was in the hospital, praying for her to come home.

The feel of a warm hand on his bare arm startled him into opening his eyes again, and the tears leaked out, sliding down his cheeks and nose and dripping off his chin. Patrick was still watching him with that fierce, icy gaze, but there was something more in it - something that seemed to soften Patrick's rough edges, lessen his smug sense of omniscience.

Ted was further surprised when Patrick lifted a hand to his face and wiped away a tear with the back of his knuckles. Patrick looked at the tear with a sort of pragmatic curiosity, and then back at Ted with something that went far beyond curiosity.

And then, without warning or precursor, Ted was in Patrick's arms, sobbing in earnest now. Patrick wrapped his slim but surprisingly strong arms around Ted, pulling him closer. Ted didn't want to think about the hell he would catch for this in the morning. Patrick was the least emotional among them, and he scorned such maudlin displays. But just now, Patrick was anything but scornful, and Ted felt an inexplicable but burning need for human contact.

After a short time, Ted pulled away, not daring to meet Patrick's eyes. The moonlight continued to spill in through tiny cracks, and he concentrated on one small beam of light that was playing over Patrick's muslin-clad stomach. He could feel his cheeks flush with embarrassment, and then anger, and finally frustration. He was the king now, for god's sake; he shouldn't be crying like a schoolgirl to his younger cousin. His younger cousin, who had touched him more in the past ten minutes than he had in the past ten years. His younger cousin, who had looked at him with such intense understanding, as though he were looking into Ted's soul. His younger cousin who at this very moment was reaching out to tilt Ted's chin, forcing Ted to meet his eyes. And in them, Ted saw an intelligence that frightened him, a respect that humbled him, and a compassion he was ashamed to admit he'd never realized was there.

"Pat," he said softly, not knowing what else to say. He struggled against an onslaught of unexpected and troubling emotions, not the least of which appeared to be a powerful longing for Patrick to keep touching him. Fortunate for Ted's keen sense of pride, Patrick obliged, pulling Ted closer until they were pressed against each other from chest to hip. Their feet were entangled beneath the sheets, and Ted nudged Patrick's with his own, suddenly self-conscious at how cold his toes were.

Oh, God, he thought to himself, I'm playing footsie with my cousin. And then he wasn't sure which was more disconcerting: that, or the fact that Patrick was reciprocating. He could feel Patrick's heart thudding through the thin muslin of their matching nightshirts, and realized his own was beating in time. He tilted his head back with a sigh, unable to continue looking into the shocking blue of Patrick's eyes. He gasped at the sudden sensation of what had to be a warm soft mouth against his throat.

"Pat," he said with a quiet groan. "Don't."

"Don't what?" Patrick said, with apparently no intention of ceasing. "Don't do this, or don't stop?"

Damned impertinent kid, he thought, with just a touch of King Edward coming through.

"Don't..." He was at a loss. Though every bit of his logical, rational mind cried out that this shouldn't be happening - that this wasn't something you did with your younger cousin, who just so happened to be your younger brother in the world you were currently inhabiting - the rest of him clung to Patrick like a lifeline, wanting and needing more, but not knowing what _more _was.

He finally forced himself to look at Patrick again, bravely meeting those piercing eyes, so similar to his own, and yet so foreign. Just now, Patrick's pupils were dilated to enormous proportions, leaving only a thin ring of blue around inky pools of black. It gave him an alien, ethereal quality. Ted had never thought much on his sister's or his cousins' looks - Laura was a bit too awkward, Ruth a bit too cold, and Ellen a bit too eager to be pretty, and Patrick... well he hadn't ever thought of Patrick until just now, when he realized his cousin was in fact rather handsome.

This thought did nothing for his present state of mind, and it was with trembling fingers and quickening breath that he reached out a hand and placed it tentatively on Patrick's belly. Patrick made a small noise which Ted took as a protest, and quickly snatched his hand away. Patrick however, gave him a fathomless look and took his hand, placing it back on the same spot Ted had just touched.

Ted, with a small whimper he would be properly ashamed of later when he had time to think about it, began to slowly run his hand up Patrick's stomach, eliciting a similarly undignified whimper from his cousin. He continued up Patrick's chest and over his shoulder, moving down along his back and coming to rest just above the swell of Patrick's buttocks. He chanced a look at Patrick's face and saw that his cousin now had his eyes closed, his eyebrows furrowed in what seemed to be deep concentration. He was biting his bottom lip, worrying it between his teeth until Ted feared it would begin to bleed.

Removing his hand from Patrick's back, Ted moved it to his face and tried to smooth the wrinkled brow. Patrick's eyes flew open and he stared at Ted with mingled fear and confusion - both emotions that were unfamiliar to him.

"Ted," he said softly, uncertainty clouding his gaze. "I..." He looked, for probably the first time in his young life, helpless. Ted, at a loss on how to deal with this new side of Patrick, tried to give him a reassuring smile. He was of course aware that whatever their ages here in the Secret Country, they were both of them in their own world barely adolescents. Obviously, they had both already experienced the joys of puberty, but Ted was reasonably sure neither of them had dealt with anything like this.

But Ted didn't have much of a chance to worry about this, as Patrick's lips were suddenly on his own, and Ted felt himself responding with a fervor he hadn't known he possessed. Ted had kissed girls before - not many and not often, but enough to have some idea of what he was doing. Patrick, he was sure, had never kissed anyone, thinking romance to be a waste of time, but just now he would never know. Though he'd never in his life stopped to consider how Patrick would kiss, he found that the reality was quite different from anything he could ever imagine. He would assume Patrick would be, as he was in most situations, cool and clinical and efficient, though in reality he was warm and soft and alive in Ted's unsure but eager arms.

After a few breathless moments the two of them pulled apart, staring at one another in the sort of wide-eyed wonder he'd read about by accident in one of his mother's romance novels. He almost wanted to giggle. And then he wanted to cry. Ted didn't know what would happen now - if Patrick would be embarrassed and pull away from him, or angry and try to hit him. He did neither. He only looked at Ted with a sort of shy fear, which unsettled Ted more than either of the other possible reactions.

"Umm..." Ted began, trying to think of what a king is supposed to say after he's kissed his cousin - brother, in this world - in a very unkingly manner. He could think of nothing.

"Shut up," Patrick said, saving him the trouble. "Let's just get some sleep, and we'll talk about this in the morning."

"It is morning," Ted said quietly, noticing that the light creeping into the room had gone from silver to pale grey.

"Then we'll talk about it this afternoon," Patrick said stubbornly. "Go to sleep."

"This afternoon's the coronation."

"Oh for the... whatever. Just sleep for now, and we'll talk about it whenever we get a chance, okay?"

Ted sighed, figuring he would have to accept this. "I'm sorry," he said, not sure which one of about a hundred things he meant.

"I said shut up," Patrick said irritably, which was strangely comforting. Then he sighed just as Ted had. "Look, I'm not upset about this, are you?"

Ted thought for a moment. He wasn't angry or anything, but upset? He felt as though he whole world had been upset, turned on its side. "No," he said slowly. "I don't think so. I mean, I'm not sorry it happened, I'm just... confused, I guess."

Patrick nodded, accepting this. "Me too, but there's nothing we can do about it now." He was quiet for a moment, and then he chuckled softly.

"What?" Ted inquired.

"Nothing, just... well, this certainly never happened in the game, did it?"

Ted laughed aloud. "No, it certainly didn't. We'd be the talk of the court, wouldn't we?"

Patrick's smile faded, and Ted regretted his words. They _would _be the talk of the court, if anyone ever found out. They weren't just kissing cousins here - and as unacceptable as all this would be in their own world, it would be even less so here.

Ted shook off his thoughts and grinned at Patrick again, hoping things wouldn't be too awkward between them.

"Think you can sleep?" Patrick said.

"Yeah, I think so," Ted said, unsure what to do. Patrick solved this for him by reaching out and drawing him close. Ted couldn't help the tiny thrill of pleasure that ran through him at Patrick's nearness, so he didn't even try. He smiled and burrowed his face into the crook of Patrick's neck, and within minutes, both boys were fast asleep.


End file.
